NESCAC schools - social life

abl
Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:49:56 +0000

Williams07–

As I said at the beginning of my post, any student absolutely committed to going out on the town frequently should probably not be looking at NESCACs or any but a few LACs–even at Amherst (yes, I do know a bunch of Lord Jeffs) there’s not much of a campus culture of “hitting the town” (all in all, the impression I get is that the Amherst social life is more affected by the 5CC than by Northampton).

Regardless of that–maybe I’m wrong–my point is that the social life is that there are many students who imagine their college social life as one bar after another…and then make friends with a group of people far more content to go to on-campus parties or just hang out in front of a movie. Sure, there are exceptions–I know you weren’t thrilled with the social life at Williams–but most high schoolers do not have a great grasp on the sort of social life they’ll actually end up having in college. For those who don’t automatically rule out Williams for its lack of bar variety (as you perhaps should have), I am saying that to look much more deeply into Williams’ social life would be to be overlooking; the difference between the social life of Williams, Middlebury, Bowdoin, Wesleyan, Carleton…or just about any top LAC will be almost entirely affected by your friends and not the “standard” college social culture (which very few students actually participate in, anywhere).